


A Lie Too Far

by SueG5123



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25134232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SueG5123/pseuds/SueG5123
Summary: He advanced the distance she had retreated, wielding the ring in front of him like some magic talisman.You said you returned it—you told me you returned it the same day.There it was.  She understood now.  Another lie, simply for the pleasure of torment.
Relationships: MacKenzie McHale/Charlie Skinner, Will McAvoy/MacKenzie McHale
Comments: 6
Kudos: 20





	A Lie Too Far

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mettespo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mettespo/gifts).



Will was clearly babbling now, something about children and paper and parents who clearly lacked rudimentary parenting skills, when he held up something that caught the studio light.

_The ring._

“I didn’t return it. Because I’m in love with you. And because—” He abandoned that thought as tangential, returning to his original thesis. “Will you marry me?”

“Wait—”

His jabber resumed. “I said, will you marry me, and before that I said I’m in love with you—you know, I feel like I could do this so much better if I could just—”

“What the fuck is going on?”

“I don’t ever want to not be—no, I love you, I’m going to go back to that, and will you marry me—and let me just say, I really think you should, I think you should say yes—"

Reflexively, she took a step back. She heard his words but the context made no sense and her own inner voice blared wariness. “Will—we can’t do this right now—we’ll be coming back from break any minute.”

“—But no matter what you say, there’s no chance that I am ever going to hurt you again." 

“Stop, Will.” She held up a hand, backing away another step. He’d said it three times now, that he loved her, but all she heard was the set-up to an inevitable punchline. _I love you but—_

“Please. Don’t say anything more.”

He advanced the distance she had retreated, wielding the ring in front of him like some magic talisman.

“Mac, you own me and I’ve been in love with you since I met you and you need to say yes—”

When she shifted her eyes from his to the ring that he held, her breath froze. She couldn’t force the air in or out, her throat had simply clamped shut in shock and pain.

_You said you returned it—you told me you returned it the same day_

There it was. She understood now. Another lie, simply for the pleasure of torment. He was once again trying to claim moral high ground at her expense. This was round three of their arguing tonight, so gratuitous and flagrantly unnecessary because he had to know he’d scored the knock-out punch earlier when he’d confessed his perfidy about the ring.

“No. I can’t believe you. Not this time.”

He reacted with a long blink, then a slight shake of the head, as if to dispel her doubt. “Mac—Mac, you’ve got to listen to me—”

“I most assuredly do not need to listen to this. Not now.” She glanced at the omnipresent clock. “We’re back in less than 90 seconds—”

“That’s plenty of time—”

As she spun away from him and ran from the studio, she heard him take several abortive steps after her. 

“MacKenzie—I was just—you’re not understanding what I—”

_I understand precisely._

Trembling and choking with emotion by the time she reached the corridor, she pressed herself against the wall and tried to compose herself. There was still a job to do, an election to call, a show to end. But the surprise and betrayal of Will’s newest twist of the knife—

“You okay, Mac?” Neal leaned through the glass door leading to the bullpen, his face clearly concerned at her atypical agitation.

“I’m fine. Tired.” She forced a smile.

“Good. I just wanted to tell you—”

“Mac, wait.” This new interruption was Will, who having followed her, was now rehearsing how to allay whatever concerns she harbored. He stiffened when he saw Neal.

Mac swallowed and tried to take _producer-ly_ control of the situation. “You were saying, Neal?”

Remembering Will’s earlier intransigence on the subject of correcting her Wikipedia page, Neal decided to be as vague as possible. “I wanted to let you know I’ve got a handle on that— _thing_ —you mentioned a little while ago. And, oh, Don’s looking for you. He’s in Control.”

“I’m going there now.” Without glancing back at Will, she pushed forward through the glass doors. The drone of eight very busy people in Control helped mask the pulse still hammering in her ears, and she waited to see if Will had the nerve to follow her into this refuge. When ten seconds passed, she finally drew a shaky breath of relief.

“Mac, when we cut back from D.C., Jane and Terry want to swap out for the rest of the night. I told them okay, but wanted to bounce it off you.” 

Don passed her a headset, which she accepted without putting it on.

“That’s fine. It will just be clean up now. There are only three close races left.”

“Oregon’s 2nd was just called, so that leaves only two.”

The bank of monitors showed Will back in his chair, reaching for his IFB earpiece. He wasn’t glaring into the camera now, not as he had earlier, and he looked thoroughly distracted. She couldn’t imagine what he was thinking, whether it was annoyance that she hadn’t fallen for his latest spiteful ruse or whether he might even be having second thoughts about his own cruelty.

She turned away and leaned near Don.

“Keep him on the Michigan 10th and the Florida 23rd. And reaction to the electoral college call in Ohio. Also—have someone fix his hair. I’m going to—” Her eyes indicated the door.

“Mac, is everything all right?”

“I think I should call it a night, Don. I saw the Lansing entourage enter the bullpen, and I’d just as soon avoid the ugliness of a public execution.”

“Is there any way to convince you that this isn’t your fault?”

“No. There’s nothing.”

Don paused, trying to think of something reassuring to say, and when he was unable to find anything, he just nodded. “Yeah. Well, go home and get some rest, Mac. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Without correcting Don’s assumption, she eased from Control and discretely circled the perimeter of the newsroom to her office, neatly avoiding Charlie Skinner, the Lansings, and even Jim and Maggie, who sat huddled over a desktop monitor. Mac grabbed her go-bag from behind a chair, and reached for her coat.

The November night was cold and windy as MacKenzie pressed through knots of Manhattanites leisurely walking the city’s sidewalks. She had recovered from her disbelief at this latest ploy of Will’s, but still seethed with the anger and hurt—yes, after all these years, still with the _hurt_ —at why he thought this final sadistic coda was necessary. He had fired her, but she thought she would be able to take comfort in having goaded him into it, into committing her own professional martyrdom. When he’d appended the lie at the end, that he suddenly realized love—that was the affront she couldn’t take.

She stopped on a corner, waiting in a throng of pedestrians for the light to change.

_What now, MacKenzie?_

If she went home, she would be assailed all night long by calls from concerned staffers. And probably Charlie as well. Perhaps even the Lansings or that lawyer Rebecca Halliday, since she had so blatantly blown up ACN’s legal strategy.

But what Mac feared most was well-meaning Jim or Sloan showing up at her doorstep, asking the questions she didn’t want to have to answer or think about right now.

She was no longer Executive Producer for _News Night_ and it was only karmic justice that Will be put on the spot to explain why.

Come to think of it, there was an outside chance that Will himself might come to call. Contrite. Willing to take it all back—undoubtedly for the unstated pleasure of being able to do it all again in another month or two.

No. She couldn’t go home tonight. She needed time to think.

The stoplight changed, and as she followed the herd across the crosswalk to the other block, she looked up at the ornate face of the Bryant Park Hotel.

Fortunately, there was at least one vacancy at the hotel and within thirty minutes, MacKenzie was in a sleek contemporary-styled room with a view of the park and the AWM Tower. The irony of the view wasn’t lost upon her, but she pulled the curtains closed anyway.

She quickly washed the remnants of make-up from her face, pulled an oversized T-shirt from her go-bag, and plucked three mini-bottles of scotch from the mini-bar, and then—in another deliberate act of insubordination—turned on CNN.

Anything to drown out the misery of knowing that Will still hated her enough to punish her. That the last six years hadn’t counted as her penance, and the last three in particular hadn’t created any camaraderie between the two of them. That he was still willing to taunt her for her single bad choice.

Despite the drinks and a luxurious suite, with a bed the size of Montana, MacKenzie laid awake for an hour before finally drifting off to a twilight borne more of exhaustion than sleep. At four-twenty, her roiling stomach woke her, the obvious consequence of too much anxiety and too much alcohol and not enough food or real rest. She couldn’t go back to sleep, so, after another hour of self-recrimination, she turned on her phone. 

A cacophony of chirps indicated messages pending.

A call from Charlie. One each from Sloan and Jim. Three calls from Will.

She listened to the calls from Jim and Sloan first, each oddly mirroring the other. They were surprised she left before the end of the broadcast, hoped she was feeling all right, and asked that she called them first thing the next morning.

Charlie’s call seemed more knowing. Simply, “Mac. Give me a call so we can get this straightened out.”

After considering for a moment, she chose to turn off the phone again rather than listen to Will’s messages.

The next morning, she sat at the counter of Starbucks, facing the plate glass window, through which she could watch pedestrians swarming the city sidewalk, all headed to a new working day. Except her, of course. For the first time in her adult life, she had nowhere to be and all the time in the world to get there. Pushing the morning papers aside, she picked up her phone.

“MacKenzie,” Charlie boomed after the very first ring. “Good to hear your voice. Great job last night, by the way, but we missed you afterwards. Reese and Leona came down specifically to talk to us and you weren’t there.”

“It seemed—better—that I should go. Don had things well in hand and it didn’t appear that there would be any surprises in the remaining races.”

“Still, the Lansings expect us to be where we can be found _when_ they want to find us. Anyway, Reese has decided that ACN will fight the suit." He paused, waiting for a response. When none came—which in itself was mildly troubling—he blustered on. “I kinda thought you would find that good news, Mac. Of course, we’re going to need to present a unified front—you, me, and Will. And have all our I’s dotted and T’s crossed on the chronology. But the Lansings are going to go to bat for us.”

“So, irony isn’t dead.”

“Mac?” 

“I just mean—well, Leona equivocated on this, didn’t she? At first, she said she’d fight Dantana’s lawsuit, then she folded and left the decision entirely to Reese, who initially wanted to settle but now has decided to fight. What’s to say he won’t change his mind again tomorrow?”

She was right about Reese’s mercurial leadership and it shook, slightly, Charlie’s earlier optimism.

“Well,” he finally managed, “they’re on our side now, and I’m glad for their willingness, however belated, to stand up for principle.” He paused and his voice had a markedly different tone when he resumed. “You know, my bombastic and generally idiotic anchor may have done something particularly stupid last night—”

“Don’t fault him.” Mac sighed. “I asked him to.”

“You asked him to resign?”

“No— _what_? He did what? When?”

“Last night, after the show, after Leona left. A real hot-headed thing to do, especially now, but I couldn’t talk any sense into him. I was hoping you could—"

“Charlie, Will fired me last night. I mean, I asked him to, so it wasn’t as if—”

“Fired you? What is this, some little murder-suicide pact between the two of you? To leave me all alone with that—that legal barracuda—”

“Rebecca Halliday—”

“Thank you, yes, her.” Charlie re-grouped. “You’re not fired, Mac. Take the day off, if you want to, you’ve earned it. But you aren’t fired.”

“He has the right, contractually, to select his EP and he fired—”

“Bullshit.”

“He told me he renegotiated his contract when I got here, three years ago, and gave back money—a lot of money—off his salary for the ability to fire me at the end of each week.”

“And I say again, bullshit. I don’t know what he told you, but there’s no such clause in his contract.”

Of course. Will had lied about that, too.

“Mac?”

“You say he resigned—why?”

“An over-developed sense of honor? Misplaced guilt? I couldn’t get a straight answer out of him. In any event, I’m going to give him some time to cool off and, hopefully, he’ll come around. In the meantime—look, Mac, it looks like there’s a lot of confusion right now, but I want you to know this. You aren’t fired. And if Will doesn’t—I mean, if it turns out that he is out of the picture—do you still want to leave ACN?”

“What are you suggesting?”

“Contingency planning, that’s all. And did something happen between the two of you last night?”

“I’d rather not—anyway, it isn’t as though I want to leave, Charlie. But a price has to be paid for Genoa and someone needs to—”

“Atone? No, Mac. There’s nothing to atone for. We did nothing wrong. A junior producer went rogue. Thank god you found it when you did. You’re the hero of this piece and I won’t have you thinking otherwise. Now, I want to see you later today.”

“Charlie, I—”

“I’m not giving you the option, MacKenzie. How about seven, in the executive dining room?”

_Will resigned?_

That was a thunderbolt.

Following Charlie’s revelation, Mac decided she needed to listen to Will’s messages from the night before.

In the first one, his voice had an injured tone. “Come on back to work, Mac. You know I didn’t mean—and the whole firing you thing, that just got out of hand. You know I don’t want that. Call me.”

The second message: “Mac, please pick up. I’m sorry for thinking—I wish you knew that I could never—we need to clear the air. Give me a chance. Call me. Please.”

In the third and final message, Will sounded miserable and his words were punctuated by frequent, pensive pauses. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve given you no reason—to believe anything—I didn’t mean to—anyway, if anyone goes, it should be me and not you.”

Mac was relieved not to have any inadvertent encounters with ACN co-workers on her way up to the 45th floor; fortunately, most of them were at work at this hour. Earlier, when she talked to Jim and Sloan in separate calls, she merely said she would be out for the rest of the week, that she needed to catch up on some personal matters. They appeared to take her explanation at face value, so obviously Will hadn’t burned any bridges for her after her departure the previous evening.

Charlie was on his phone as she stepped from the elevator, and he hurriedly ended the call.

“Hey, thanks for coming. I think we have the place to ourselves,” he said, guiding her through the walnut doors of the executive dining room to a table near the window. “Fernando,” he signaled to the white-coated waiter helping Mac with the chair, “if you would be so kind, a bourbon for me, and for the lady—”

Realizing this was her cue, Mac piped up, “Just a club soda. Thank you.”

“Mac. You saw the Times this morning?”

He was plainly referring to the curt announcement of a lawsuit expected to be to be filed against ACN.

She smiled wanly. “Yes. And the Daily News, with its story about ACN possibly reshuffling its prime time line up as a result of the Sarin hoax. And, of course, the Post, with the salacious innuendo of rampant staff fraternization, improprieties, and bias. I think I’ve seen it all.”

Charlie nodded and leaned closer. “So. You want to stay and fight with us, or what?”

“You know I would, but Will was right: Jerry will become enough of a nuisance that Mrs. Lansing will want to settle anyway. And even if he doesn’t, or she doesn’t, this situation will prove radioactive to every person here. If I leave, if there’s a public execution for this debacle, then there’s still a chance that _News Night_ can be rehabilitated in the popular mind—”

“ _News Night_ is Will’s show. If he resigns, there’s nothing to rehabilitate.”

“That’s why you have to stop him." 

Fernando returned with the drinks, and Charlie used a finger to stir the ice through his bourbon.

“You could stop him, you know.”

“I—Charlie—” She exhaled a heavy breath and dropped her head. “I don’t think I could. He doesn’t listen to me. Will doesn’t want my approval.”

“Then,” Charlie’s eyebrows shifted upward in an expression of faux innocence, “this would be the first time since you’ve been back that he hasn’t. Hang on.” He dug his phone out of his pocket. “I need to take this call, if you’ll excuse me for a few minutes.”

“Of course.”

After he’d gone, she looked around the room. Empty chairs were neatly squared under empty tables, the linens and set-ups already made up for the breakfast service of Leona Lansing and her AWM executives, conducting high-stakes tete-a-tetes over egg white omelets and café au lait.

She heard the sound of air moving and saw the door closing. But it wasn’t Charlie, returning. 

It was Will.

He stopped, obviously having sighted her, then swallowed, straightened, and began to approach.

“This can’t possibly be coincidence,” she said.

“No. Not coincidence,” he agreed, stopping a few feet away. 

“Did Charlie set this up?”

“Charlie may have let slip that you were coming tonight.” Will’s eyes flicked to the clock. “He’ll be delayed in returning because Don’s suddenly going to need him urgently in Control. I thought that you should have the opportunity to—well, to use your own words—to say what you want to say to me.”

“Say what I want to say,” she repeated.

“Yeah. You need to be heard and I’m the one who needs to hear it. You’re the bomb that hasn’t detonated, Mac, so let’s have this out.”

“I don’t think you really mean that.”

“I damn well do. I know I’ve let you down.”

“Let me down? Seriously?” Anger and incredulity began to warm her voice. “Will, I am so tired of the punishments—the petty but calculated cruelties—the lies. The cavalcade of bimbos young enough to be your daughters. Bringing Brian into my newsroom. That stunt with the cookies, which risked not only your professional credibility but that of everyone here, including Charlie Skinner and the network. The voice message you managed to taunt me with for months. And, going all the way back to the beginning, your allegedly giving back millions off your salary for the pleasure of holding a sword of Damocles over my head each week—except that Charlie just told me that was a lie. Everything with you is a lie. And the worst lie of all was last night.”

“The ring,” he acknowledged, already aware that that surely had been the most outlandish untruth of the last three years. Its obvious expense and the way he had deceived her about when it had been purchased and for what reason. Then, last night, the casually appended lie that he had returned it to the jewelry store the same day and that it had all been a cruel deception from the start. He realized how sadistic it appeared.

“The ring was part of it, of course, but what I really mean is chasing me down to tell me you’d suddenly had this, I don’t know, this breakthrough realization that you —”

“I’m in love with you, Mac.”

“What you _love_ is hurting me. You love exacting your revenge in small and meaningful amounts.”

He stood there, shamefaced as he had in Hair & Makeup, indicted by her words and aware of his guilt. “I know I have, but I don’t ever want to hurt you again. Not intentionally,” he added, in clear reference to their confrontation the night before, “and not unintentionally. Just, not.”

Downcast, he pulled out a chair from a neighboring table and dropped into it. “I feel as though a chorus of _Send in the Clowns_ might be appropriate about now.”

“Sing anything you like, but this is the end for me. I can’t take the hurt and humiliation anymore, Will.”

She knew, by the length of time he stayed quiet, that she had finally penetrated his reserve. When he spoke again, his voice was low.

“Last night, I told you that I love you. You accuse me of lying to you, and I understand where that comes from. All those things you mentioned before, I’m sorry for them. Sorry for the way they looked to you.”

He rose and began to pace. “The thing about the clause in the contract, well, that was just because I panicked when you showed up here and I needed some way to exert power. And, yeah, I dated a bunch of girls—you’re right, they were just girls—to show you that somebody else might find me desirable. To make you jealous, if you like. Brenner—well, I was upfront about that one. I told you I brought him in for the comparison between us—and maybe to put you on the defensive a bit, too, because by that time I’d realized—”

He shook his head. “Over-self-medicating on cannabis cookies was me trying to shed my inhibition and say something to you—which I didn’t get around to saying until much later that night, to a machine instead of to you. I didn’t know the message would be hijacked. I also didn’t know I would have an emergency performance on national TV that night. So, nothing about that entire night was planned.”

“Nina Howard.”

“Nina was convenient. It was companionship, sort of. And I knew it would—bother you.” That last, guiltily. “But I could never have felt anything for Nina and she knew it. She knew I was in love with you.”

“How would she have known that?” Then, Mac answered her own question. “The voice message. That’s what it—"

His expression confirmed it.

“But why didn’t you tell me yourself later, when—”

“Mac, you can believe this or not, but I haven’t been punishing you, I’ve been punishing me.” He stopped his motion and looked at her directly. “If it still means anything to you—what happened between you and me and Brian back in the day—well, I understand a little better than I used to. I wasn’t the person you deserved—and I’m still not, because you’ve run away from me twice now. But I won’t hurt you again. Even if you can’t love me anymore.”

A commotion across the room made them both turn and look.

“Christ on a crutch, I didn’t think I’d ever get out of that Control room. Sorry for the wait, Mac, I—” 

Charlie stumbled as he recognized Will was present now. “Oh. Perhaps I’m interrupting?” his inflection rising with hope at seeing the two of them together.

“No, it’s okay, Charlie.” Will repositioned his chair back into formation under the table, smoothing the drape of the tablecloth. “I think we’ve finished.”

“Mac talked you out of quitting, right?”

“Wrong again. The lady gets custody.”

“Custody of what, the show? _News Night with Will McAvoy_ —without Will McAvoy?”

“Will—” Mac stood, still sorting through his previous words. Was he planning professional self-immolation to compensate for the Genoa broadcast or because she rebuffed him the night before?

“Goddam it, Will, Leona’s going to hold you in breach—"

“ _Force majeure_. Unforeseen complications prevent my compliance.” Shrugging, Will abruptly left.

As the door closed soundlessly behind Will, Charlie moved to the table he’d just vacated, clearly vexed by the anchor’s obstinacy.

“You don’t have to tell me the details. It’s pretty obvious that that didn’t go well. Pistols at dawn might have been better, right?”

She threw up a hand, stopping his words. “I need—Charlie, I’ve got to—if I can—maybe there’s a chance—” Her eyes flashed frantically between Charlie and the door, torn between courtesy and urgency. She owed Charlie an explanation for running out, but she couldn’t come up with the words.

Fortunately, Charlie seemed to divine the moment.

“If you hurry you can catch him.”

With a tight smile of relief, she dashed to the corridor. At the elevator landing, the brushed metal door was just sliding closed.

“Will! Wait—come back!"

She jabbed at the call button, trying to recall the car, then looked anxiously above to the digital floor indicator. It seemed frozen. Turning her attention to the other elevator’s floor indicator, she tried to calculate if she could overtake him in the lobby, before he got to the inevitable Escalade waiting at the curb.

_Ping._

“Mac?” Will looked around the elevator’s door, his hand bracing it from retracting again.

Words burst from her in a stream long pent-up. “Oh, god, Will, please come back, I’m sorry, I love you, too—I swear I’ll never to do anything to hurt you again—” 

“You’re sorry you love me, too?”

“That didn’t come out right,” she admitted, wiping at eyes that had suddenly started leaking, “and I don’t know what any of this means, not really, because last night I was so hurt and I’ve been so miserable today—"

“Me, too.” Barely hiding his delight at her sudden reversal, he stepped out of the elevator, still holding the door in place. “I think I understand what you mean, though.”

“Thank god.”

As they stood there, staring stupidly at each other and anticipating what to do next, Charlie Skinner passed between them, carrying his squat glass of bourbon and headed for the open elevator.

“Fernando and the kitchen crew are here until ten, if you two want to grab a late supper.” Then, nodding to Will, “You can let go now.”

Will moved his hand and let the door slide closed. As he turned, MacKenzie moved into his arms, not quite a leap, but quick and decisive. After a flash of awkward hesitation, perhaps sudden shyness at how quickly and totally without planning they had arrived at this moment, he bent to kiss her and she looped her hands around his neck, pulling him closer and steadying herself, because she suddenly felt as though she was falling, that the ground was slipping from under her feet.


End file.
